cut
by lokogato-sama
Summary: Kakashi feels like a eunuch. [Kakashicentric, Team 7 introspective] [656 words]


Loko: This was originally a feel-better fic for Chevira Lowe on LJ, and also partially a worship-fic, because she has under her name the single best Sasuke character essay ever. (Yes, a fangirl here speaks!)

Summary: Kakashi feels like a eunuch.

Disclaimer: The theme was supposed to be haremboys. uu; Kishimoto-san made the Original Pimpster; I can lay no claim to the brilliant pedophilia of Oro-sama's character, let alone the wonder of _Naruto_.

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Kakashi feels like a eunuch.

Well, not in that way. He reads _Icha_ _Icha_ for a reason, and his careful boredom, dangerous and alluring, draws women.

Head eunuch, he means; the eunuch who slid open the fragile paper doors and bathed and powdered and perfumed the chosen concubine, then slung her wrapped in a gold blanket over his shoulder and carried her like a sack of meal to the waiting emperor.

After all, his team has finally left him. Naruto has gone to train with Jiraiya, Tsunade gives Sakura obscene amounts of work, and …

Kakashi supposes that makes emperors of the famous Sannin and concubines of Team Seven.

(Sasuke would disagree with that.

… Orochimaru would agree.)

What really makes him feel like a eunuch (useless) is the fact that he did, in fact, groom those three for their final teachers. He'd encouraged Sasuke's and Naruto's fruitful rivalry – hardly difficult, a comment here or a pointed glance there and Naruto was on his feet, screeching to be allowed to fight, or Sasuke was cold fire, demanding more training, more difficult missions. Sakura has been pulled along in their wake, and Kakashi is still glad from the bottom of his heart that he let those three take the Chuunin Exam, despite the disastrous consequences.

He can't help feeling like a bit of a pimp, though. After all, wasn't that what a eunuch basically did? He'd let Sasuke develop Sharingan as rapidly as possible and crowned the attractiveness of the boy with Chidori, a sweet and deadly perfume. He'd all but thrown Naruto over his shoulder, hauled him off to Jiraiya, and then lifted up his shirt and shown off the spiral seal. When Tsunade had asked him if he frankly thought Sakura could be a medic-nin, he'd swallowed his blurry memories of Rin's careful stitching and nodded.

Kakashi hasn't actually seen his team for – well, months, now. Sakura's holed up somewhere, studying furiously; Naruto's traceless, Jiraiya's fame as the strongest of the Three not without reason; and Sasuke … Sasuke more traceless than Naruto, whispers sometimes of Orochimaru's movement but no solid evidence, a shifting village aptly named.

He wonders about them.

Well. If he were being fully honest with himself, he worries about them. He's had teams before, of course, but none with such promise and none with such – darkness is not the word he wants, but it's close. They're his brats, and he's watched them teeter on the edge between pure and blinding victory and seeping loss. He still is.

He believes in them, though. It's his job, isn't it? He's kicked and shoved and carried them for as long as they needed – and he could – and by now they should have moved on to bigger things, or something. But then Sasuke's defection, like some ill-placed threshold, tripped them all and Kakashi can see them slowly stagnating into this always-waiting, always-watching, always-hoping.

Iruka wants to tell Naruto to give up and move on (he just doesn't want Naruto hurt). Tsunade wants Naruto to shut the hell up and move on (and it's not that she doesn't care, it's that she knows from experience and Naruto is her favourite and Sakura's a close second). There are times when Kakashi knows that even Sakura keeps hope only because of Naruto's beautiful certainty. It would probably be the right thing to do, jolting them out of this wild goose chase and forcing them to carry on with their lives.

Kakashi doesn't make them, though, because he's like them: he hasn't lost faith. Not in Naruto's warming blaze, not in Sakura's soothing trust, not least in Sasuke's icy fire that flickers brightly, illuminates his path, and will bloom into the Konoha will of fire when he finally comes home.

Eunuchs were as distasteful creations as they come, but they watched over and took care of the harem.

Kakashi is no eunuch. He will go forth into the light with his own.

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656 words

Nerdy Historical Note: strictly speaking, the eunuchs' original purpose was in fact to take care of the harem. As 'half-men,' they supposedly presented no temptation to the virtue of the emperor's wives. In reality, they were politicking, nasty, grafting little beasts. Nonetheless, they did do their job for the most part. (One thinks.) And yes, when a concubine was chosen, she was wrapped in a gold blanket and nothing else, and toted on the back of the chief eunuch to be presented for the emperor's pleasure. (Oro-sama, indeed …)

Concrit makes Kaka-sensei feel more like a whole man? (… please Mangekyou the author while you're at it. -.-;)

Loko


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